On March 13, 2020, I got a call from the local juvenile hall canceling my class on the poetry and politics of Malcolm X. It was just days into the COVID-19 lockdown that canceled all prison visits. My frustration kept me up that night. Incarcerated students looked forward to attending the weekly class we provided through the UCLA Prison Education Program, not to mention seeing their parents and loved ones.
For weeks I couldn’t communicate with my students, and detention center staff told me tensions were rising in the facility. Ultimately, wardens accepted videoconferencing as a better alternative than no visitation at all. Family visits were reinstated via video, and our college program resumed using Microsoft Teams.
The pandemic has accelerated the world’s digital transformation, forcing more daily life to happen online. For those of us working to dismantle the prison industrial complex, it laid bare the urgent need to make technology more accessible to those behind bars.
